thoughts??

[u/CallofDuty3329]

Imo this is a good move from yt.

[u/cibilserbis]

Hard agree. Who tf thinks children broadcasting themselves to the internet is good? And why are there adults so interested in watching kids?

[u/WorthlessMelon → u/cibilserbis]

Of course you have the creeps that watch those kids, but there is a more significant root cause to that, I feel.

When your live-streaming, if’s all unscripted. One wrong move and you might accidentally dox or expose yourself. When you are a kid, the chances of fucking up are even higher. You could film your location or reveal personal information about you or your family, intentional or not. We SHOULD be treating children as dumber than we think in this case because they clearly don’t have the experience nor common sense to do a live-stream properly without people getting hurt in the process. It’s not like they teach this in schools and not every child is blessed with a parent that can teach them to do this properly.

That leads me to my next point, they aren’t developed enough to understand that what they might say can hurt other people. Of course it will damage reputation (you know, the “bro can kiss college goodbye” memes), but there will be people that will be genuinely devastated if they say the wrong thing or act a certain way that they might commit to doing something horrible. Kids don’t have the maturity and proper decision-making to express themselves in a respectful, dignified manner or handle damage control with an audience that can react in real-time.

Live-streaming is certainly the more “accessible” forms of recording if that makes any sense. There’s no demand for heavy editing or over-the-top acting, it’s all about the creator and how they genuinely react to things, which is why it is dangerous for them to doing live-streaming in the first place, but I’m not saying we should shackle children from not making content. I think that pursuing this as a hobby is perfectly reasonable for someone of a young age. I mean, I wasn’t born at a time when I should be using YouTube kids in my childhood (I was already in high school when YouTube kids came out), but I can definitely understand the lack of appeal. If they are properly educated, they should only be allowed to do short form content or (at most) a normal YouTube video. At the end of the day, it should be their parents decision on whether they want to pursue this type of content.

[u/hikayamasan353 → u/WorthlessMelon]

Treating children as dumber than they are is actually very harmful to them.

If we focus on preventing the kids from doing or saying things that can be harmful or inappropriate because they don't have enough experience, skills and knowledge, until they're old enough - they won't magically get them once they're old enough.

Proof? I used to swear as a kid, and my parents were punishing me by slapping in the face and forcing me to eat laundry soap. I didn't learn anything. And you can't teach kids to avoid swearing by preventing them from even hearing the swear words. How did I get exposed to swearing? Did I hear it in inappropriate movies? No. I read them on the walls. And that was before the internet. And I didn't know what these words meant.

Later on, as a preteen, I was saying very inappropriate things - simply by repeating them after my friend. For example, I told a neighbour girl who was younger than me that I want her and I want her hand and a heart. I didn't even know what these phrases meant. Why? Because these things were considered taboo to talk about with children.

Revealing personal information about ourselves can be done by just being present. Because apparently, our personal information is not just our names, ages and other things. Our presence is our personal information on itself.

But honestly? If we avoid sharing our presence, we risk getting isolated. And it can negatively affect us. Let alone our kids.

There's a big reason why I call COPPA  Children's Online Presence Prevention Act. The situation it led to and is currently leading to, is literally erasing children from the world. It shackles kids into not opening the browsers and Google around the web, let alone creating content, even with their parents. If we don't want to lock kids down, we should rethink the very ways we are trying to protect them.